According to Margaret Gilbert, individuals have a "collective belief" that p if and only if they are jointly committed to believe that p as a body (2002, 42)—that is, if and only if they are jointly committed to act as parts of a single entity that believes that p (2002, 45). This doesn't mean that, if John and Sara collectively believe that p, then John ought to personally believe that p or ought to act as if he did (1987, 196). However, as long as John and Sara collectively believe that p—that is, as long as they are jointly committed to believe that p as a body—John ought to act as if the group composed of him and Sara believes that p (1987, 199). (For example, John shouldn't deny that p when speaking on behalf of the group.)
Some critics have argued that collective beliefs, as Gilbert defines them, aren't genuine beliefs. I regard many of these arguments as non-starters, since they confuse the level of the collective with the level of the individuals composing it.[1] However, I think that there is a serious objection to the claim that Gilbert's "collective beliefs" are genuine beliefs.
We usually think of a belief as a certain kind of phenomenal experience. Now, it's highly doubtful that a collective qua collective can have phenomenal experiences (although its members obviously can). At any rate, Gilbert wants to avoid tying her notion of collective belief to any notion of "group minds" that would be metaphysically controversial (cf. 2002, 40), so claiming that a collective qua collective can have phenomenal experiences doesn't appear to be open to her. Here, then, is the problem: if beliefs are phenomenal experiences, then Gilbert's collective beliefs aren't genuine beliefs, because a collective can't have phenomenal experiences.
To respond to this objection, Gilbert would have to deny that beliefs must be phenomenal experiences. She might do so by embracing a version of the theory of mind called functionalism.[2] According to functionalism, X has mental state M as long as X is the subject of some state that performs the function associated with M.[3] Gilbert could argue that collective beliefs qualify as beliefs because they perform the normative function associated with beliefs: if Sam believes that p, then, all else being equal, Sam ought to act as if he believes that p; likewise, on Gilbert's account, if a group composed of John and Sara collectively believes that p, then, all else being equal, John and Sara ought to act as if the group believes that p.
One might worry that this functionalist response overlooks a disanalogy between the normative function of individual beliefs and that of collective beliefs. A collective belief has the following normative function: if a group composed of John and Sara collectively believes that p, then the members of the group—John and Sara—each ought to act as if the group believes that p. In contrast, an individual belief has the following normative function: if Sam believes that p, then Sam himself—not the members of Sam—ought to act as if he believes that p. Thus, one might object that individual and collective beliefs have different normative functions and, thus, that collective beliefs aren't genuine beliefs.
Gilbert might respond to this objection by claiming that it arbitrarily privileges individual beliefs: yes, there's a disanalogy between the normative function of individual beliefs and that of collective beliefs, but that doesn't mean that collective beliefs aren't genuine beliefs—any more than it means that individual beliefs aren't genuine beliefs. Gilbert might define a belief that p roughly[4] as a state that meets the following condition: if X has that state, then X's possession of the state entails that either X or X's members ought to act as if X believes that p.
References:
Gilbert, Margaret. "Belief and Acceptance as Features of Groups". Protosociology. 16 (2002): 35-69.
_____. "Modelling Collective Belief". Synthese 73.1 (1987): 185-204.
[1] For example, some object that collective beliefs aren't genuine beliefs because (1) a person can't make himself believe something at will and (2) individuals seem to be able to create collective beliefs at will, simply by jointly committing to them. As Gilbert rightly notes, this objection confuses "the individual wills of the members of a collective" with "the will of the collective itself" (2002, 63). When John and Sara jointly commit to believe that p as a group, they (in some sense) will the collective belief into existence, but that doesn't mean that the group itself wills its belief into existence.
[2] In doing so, of course, she would also take on whatever problems functionalism faces. I personally reject functionalism as a theory of mind, but I won't address my objections to it here.
[3] In most versions of functionalism, M's function is thought to consist in M's causal relations to other mental states, to external stimuli, and to external behavior.
[4] This definition would have to be refined a bit. For one thing, there are clearly situations in which X has good reason to act as if he believes that p, but in which X need not actually believe that p. For example, suppose that X knows that he will be killed unless he acts as if he believes that p. For another thing, there are additional normative features that Gilbert regards as essential to collective belief, e.g. that if X acts contrary to a collective belief held by a group of which X is a member, then the group's other members have the standing to rebuke X (1987, 192). A Gilbertian definition of belief might need to take into account all the normative features of collective belief, even if they don't end up as part of the definition of belief as such.
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